THE WOMAN QUESTION… AGAIN: How soon will we elect a female president?

The departure of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren from the presidential race

assures that The United States will not, in 2020, elect its first female president. Her exit leaves a two-man Democratic contest between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, with the winner facing incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in November. Many lamented the fact the country passed up a chance at joining the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and other democratic nations in electing a female leader. A diverse Democratic field that began with six women candidates, including four sitting U.S. Senators, ended up reduced to two white men.

          

Voters and pundits asked why. How much did

raw,  pure and simple sexism account for the fact all the female candidates flamed out? How does the United States elect a female president?

We care about the question and we’ve previously written on the subject. In February 2019 we examined whether some people won’t vote for a woman under any circumstances. In February 2020, we wondered how much the last two surviving women in this year’s Democratic race – Warren and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar—were being penalized for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss. Warren’s departure forced a new look at the issue, one we found we approach differently:

Woodson: Leaving the Best Player on the Sidelines

Elizabeth Warren improved the 2020 race as a political exercise and deserved a better

fate. She remains, in my view, the most intelligent candidate who ran. She offered detailed plans for solving a plethora of problems. She succinctly explained the  benefits and shortcomings of capitalism

and how she would corral its destructive aspects, yet make capitalism work for ordinary Americans.

Warren offered a compelling personal story, complete with Republican brothers and a painful recitation of repossession of her family’s car as she grew up in Oklahoma. Her path from public school teacher to professor at elite law schools is the stuff of inspirational movies and novels.  Successfully leading the fight for creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that fights predatory business practices confirms her grit, determination, and dedication to helping ordinary working people.

Why didn’t Warren get nominated? I see only two reasons, given her political talent and

the fact she presented a scandal-free personal and political history: (1) because of her commitment not to take money from special business interests, she couldn’t raise enough money and (2) sexism. Because of her belief that disproportionate corporate influence in

politics harms democracy, she wouldn't take Super Pac money until early this year, when it was probably too late.  As for sexism, her gender was not her choice.  That's something America must face and fix. Elizabeth Warren and America deserved better. 

Henry: The Electorate’s Fears Got the Best of Warren and Us

I share Woodson’s enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren as a potential president and his disappointment about the gender bias that

helped  keep her out of the White House. She was the best candidate in the 2020 field. I always suspected the public couldn’t overcome sexist impulses that might impede her. I knew many voters would question her

electability for no reason other than gender. Too many people became amateur political prognosticators, speculating that others wouldn’t vote for Warren in light of Clinton’s defeat. 

I agreed with the CNN analyst who, after one debate last summer, called Warren “the best athlete on the field.” In many of the debates she was. Her destruction of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg in the Nevada debate left her permanent mark on the 2020 race.

A win for Warren, however, wasn’t in the cards. Fear, much of it irrational, that Trump would intimidate any woman opponent made voters overemphasize her missteps, like her slightly clumsy handling of Medicare-for-All. At the end, my distrust of the electorate returned, and that distrust was confirmed. Voters thought she couldn’t win and that spelled the end of her candidacy. It shouldn’t have.   

Rob: A Broader View

Warren’s departure is symbolically important, but  I believe too many people

learned the wrong lesson from 2016 and from the failure of this year’s female candidates. America isn’t so sexist it won’t elect a woman president. We just need to give the right woman a chance.

I offer two simple propositions: (1) in 2016 Hillary Clinton got more votes than her male opponent and (2) the fact she didn’t win in the electoral college falls as much or more on her as on the electorate’s alleged inherent gender bias.

The first point just states an undeniable fact. The second requires that people like me who supported Secretary Clinton face inconvenient truths. As a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton was an outlier and not because of her gender. Few presidential nominees in American history, and none of the women running this time, brought with them the baggage or intense dislike among voters  Clinton did. None of them made Wall Street speeches for thousands of dollars in fees. None of them used a private e-mail server for government business, then couldn’t explain it and only half-heartedly apologized. None of them, I’m confident, would have run a general election campaign without once landing their plane in Wisconsin.

We began this blog in July 2016 writing about sports teams afraid of hiring black coaches and executives after a previous black occupant of the job failed. That one-and-done philosophy in sports isn’t right and it’s not right in politics. Clinton’s flawed candidacy shouldn’t doom all women.

Neither Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, nor even Marianne Williamson lost because America won’t elect a woman president. They lost because too many people learned the wrong lesson from 2016. America will elect a female president. No reason exists for projecting the sins of a past female candidate onto this year’s women candidates. We’ve elected male presidents after other men failed in the job. What’s the difference?